


this slope is treacherous

by dearzoemurphy



Category: New Girl (TV 2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Rewrite, Episode: s01e03 Wedding, F/M, Gen, Season/Series 01, Slow-ish burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:20:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29906526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearzoemurphy/pseuds/dearzoemurphy
Summary: After Jess pretends to be Nick's girlfriend at a wedding, the two of them find themselves uncovering feelings that they'd hoped would stay hidden.Season 1 AU.
Relationships: Jessica Day/Nick Miller
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17





	this slope is treacherous

There wasn’t anything weird about one of Jessica Day’s new roommates asking her to be his fake date to a wedding.

 _“I’d want one of them to do the same for me if Spencer and I ended up going to the same wedding,”_ she reasoned when Nick first made the proposition.

Of course, she probably wouldn’t have told any one of her roommates that they looked great when they showed her what they were wearing to said wedding. At least, not the way Nick had when she revealed her off-the-shoulder purple minidress to him and Schmidt. There was something about the way he’d said it. It was so reverent, so serious, so unlike everything Jess had come to expect from Nick after living with him for a few weeks.

Naturally, she’d cut whatever meaning the moment had with a reveal of gross prop teeth, and by showing them what her ideal version of the chicken dance was.

 _“Whatever, I have to get it all out of my system since I can’t be myself at this wedding, apparently. Nick wants me to tone it down while we’re there to make Caroline feel more threatened by me or whatever,”_ she’d thought as she took the teeth off and stuffed them into her bag.

And now she was sitting next to Nick at said wedding, his allegedly evil ex-girlfriend making her way towards them.

“Jess, be cool!” he whispered fiercely as she pulled him back into his seat to prevent him from escaping. She nodded and readily draped herself over him, wrapping an arm around one of his and resting her head in the crook of his neck.

“Hi!”

Nick turned away from Jess and towards the blonde standing in front of him, sweat already starting to bead up on his forehead. “Hey, Caroline! Wow, I didn’t know you were going to be here. Great to see you.”

 _“Alright, it’s go time,”_ Jess thought, kicking herself into high gear to sell their lie.

“Oh, Nicholas, you have to introduce me!” she exclaimed in an overly posh accent. She grabbed Nick’s hand and pulled it behind her so that his arm would be draped over her shoulders and curled into his side as he shifted around her.

“Uh, yeah, of course,” he said, sounding a little startled. (Hopefully not at her choice of accent, she’d spent _way_ too much time in the shower perfecting it for him to dislike it.) She took Nick’s hand in both of hers; rubbing and squeezing it as she stared right into Caroline’s bright blue eyes, like she was issuing a challenge.

“Uh, Jess, this is Caroline.”

“Hi,” the woman said, looking skeptical as she held out a hand for Jess to shake.

“One more time, Caralee?” Jess asked as she awkwardly gripped the woman’s hand.

“Uh, Caroline,” she gently corrected.

“Caraloo? Coraline?”

“Caroline!” Nick interjected, visibly exasperated.

 _“Alright, that must have been too much,”_ Jess noted.

“Okay! Fancy,” she mumbled. “Well, I’m Nicholas’ girlfriend, we just started dating, so we’re still in that honeymoon phase.” Jess glanced to the side and saw that Nick was giving her an encouraging smile.

_“Okay, this is working! Just keep this going.”_

“I barely sleep. _So_ much doing it.”

She tensed when the last sentence left her mouth, expecting Nick to raise an objection or tell her that she’d gone too far. But when she looked back at him, he only laughed and smiled even wider.

“So much doing it,” he confirmed, “it’s crazy.”

Jess laughed along with him, leaning further into his side and stroking the side of his face.

“And he’s so soft, like a towel!”

“Well, uh, it was nice to meet you,” Caroline said curtly, wrinkling her nose as she watched the pair move closer and closer together.

“So nice to meet you, too, Carol,” Jess agreed.

“…Caroline.”

Jess laughed. “I give up!”

Caroline looked down at the ground, visibly deflated. “I guess I’ll see you later, Nick.”

“For sure. For sure, for sure,” he mumbled, nodding as him and Jess watched her trudge back to her seat. She paused to turn and look at the two of them on her way, which made Jess feel a swell of pride. Once Caroline was settled back into place, Nick slowly spun back around to face Jess.

“Oh my god. Was she jealous? I think she was jealous,” Nick said joyfully. “You did so good, that was remarkable!”

Jess couldn’t have him thinking that she’d done too good of a job, so she leaned over to grab a very specific set of prop teeth from her bag.

His horrified expression when she opened her mouth again was completely worth it.

“I just did what my mama taught me.”

Nick sighed and held out his hand. “Give me the teeth.” Jess rolled her eyes as she removed them and placed them in his outstretched palm.

“Listen, if you can do more of whatever you did all night, Caroline will combust. I guarantee it.”

“Is that the goal here? I thought it was just to keep her away from you,” Jess asked innocently, unable to stop her expression from becoming rather forlorn as she watched Nick shove her fake teeth into his pocket.

“Well, yeah. _And_ make her so jealous that she forgets why she ever gave this up in the first place.” He gestured up and down his body, causing Jess’ eyes to follow the path he was tracing.

 _“You know, seeing him in a suit, I kind of get it,”_ she thought. Immediately, she cast the notion out of her brain. _“No. No, Jess. You can’t think about your new roommates like that. Not now. Not ever.”_

“Don’t worry. There’s _always_ more where that came from,” she assured Nick as she leaned her head over onto his shoulder. Without any prompting whatsoever, he wrapped one arm around her and started tracing patterns on the side of her arm with a feather-light touch.

_“Oh. There’s a teeny tiny minuscule chance that I might be screwed.”_

\---

The ceremony was long. Too long. Nick couldn’t get inside the reception fast enough. Of course, once they were inside, the others quickly got themselves involved in various antics; Schmidt managed to get himself into a situation where he was pretending to be sober for a girl and Winston was squaring off with a small child. But at least they were inside, and Caroline was looking at them.

Jess was stroking the sides of his face, pulling it closer to her as she smoothed down his hair. The way she was looking at him made him feel for a moment like this was all real. Like it was really her thumb trailing over his cheekbones and her bright smile, not just an act.

“ _It’s been a while since I’ve been in a relationship,”_ he thought, _“I probably just like having this kind of attention again.”_

“What are you doing, Jess?”

“She’s looking at us,” she murmured, draping her arms over his shoulders and pulling him somehow closer before turning to flash Caroline a triumphant grin. Nick followed Jess’ gaze to see that Caroline was indeed staring at them with more contempt than he’d seen from her in a while.

A moment later, Jess pulled his face back towards her as she continued combing over every inch of him.

“Your head is shaped like a yam,” she remarked.

“Yeah, I know. I can’t wear soft hats.”

He felt a sort of warmth rising up in his chest as her fingers continued to brush over every inch of him. For once, her gentle gaze was exclusively directed at him, her smile was growing brighter because of things he said, and there was a certain tenderness to their interactions that seemed to transcend the act.

 _“C’mon, Nick. You signed an agreement. You_ proposed _that agreement. You’re not allowed to change your mind when it suits you.”_

In an attempt to get his mind off of Jess’ roaming hands, he turned back towards Caroline, who had stood up and appeared to be approaching their table.

“Wait, she’s coming over here! When she gets here, I want to talk to her by myself.”

“What? No! Are you sure?”

“Jess, I’m fine,” Nick insisted. Her brows were furrowed in concern and her mouth drew itself up into a thin line, and his insistence did little to change that. “For real, I promise.”

“Hi. Could that ceremony have lasted any longer?” Caroline said, leaning against the chair next to Nick.

He whipped around to face her and gave a polite smile. “It really was…”

“We loved it,” Jess interjected. “We’re taking notes in case Mr. Commitment-phobe over here decides to make an honest woman out of me.”

 _“She’s doing great. She’s doing her job. You can’t be mad,”_ Nick reminded himself.

“Oh,” Caroline muttered.

Jess grinned and moved to press her face against Nick’s, her nose just brushing against the side of his cheek. He almost moved to meet her, but stopped himself just in time.

“Hey, Jess, did you want to go do that thing from…”

She untangled her arms from him and sprung away in one swift motion. “Yes, I did. I want to do it very badly. Yup.”

Jess scurried off as fast as possible, leaving Caroline to slide into the seat next to Nick.

“Jess is…great.”

Nick noticed that he’d been too busy watching her walk away to notice that his ex was now sitting mere inches to his right. “Oh, yeah. The best. So happy.” His gaze couldn’t help but drift back over to her as she scanned the crowd in search of their friends.

“Are you guys pretty serious, or…”

“Yeah, we are pretty serious,” he answered quickly. “We live together. I mean, different bedrooms, but shared bathroom, so that’s something.”

He knew that would make Caroline even more jealous than she already was, since that was a line they’d never crossed. Granted, he was fibbing slightly about the nature of their arrangement. But that’s what this entire evening was: one grand charade. A masterclass in deception.

“Oh,” she squeaked, “that’s nice. So you finally moved out of that loft with Schmidt and Winston then, huh?”

“Oh, no. Jess moved into the loft,” Nick clarified.

“Well, that’s something.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“I wonder why you never extended me the same offer,” Caroline said, walking her fingers over to Nick’s arm.

“Well, we had Coach and Winston both living there at one time, you know? There wasn’t an open room for you, and I know how much you value your personal space.”

“Right,” she said with a clearly forced smile.

“It…sounds better than it is,” he said, sensing that she might be about to get up and leave.

_“And leave you to spend the rest of the night with Jess.”_

“I get it. Living together is hard. You don’t have to click immediately to make it work!” Caroline assured him. She finally moved to grab his forearm, gripping it tightly and rubbing the side of it with her thumb.

It was easy to forget exactly _what_ he missed about Caroline. Nick often got fixated on the fact that he missed her, and that she ruined his life, and that he couldn’t take her back. But she was often supportive, in her own unique way. A good listener. Fun to hang out with.

And, while the others would judge him if he went back to her, at least he hadn’t signed a document saying that he wouldn’t.

“Yeah, I know. But enough about me,” he said, placing one hand on hers. “What’s been going on with you?”

\---

Jess felt good about her decision to leave Nick alone with Caroline until Winston came running over to her and Schmidt looking incredibly panicked.

“We got a problem.”

“What?” Schmidt asked. His gaze followed his roommate’s over to a few tables away, where Nick and his ex were happy conversing. Schimdt’s face fell and he immediately turned to Jess to shoot her a judgemental glare.

“Jess, what did you do?!”

“They’re fine, they’re just talking!” she insisted.

“No, no, no, no, no. With Caroline, he is not fine,” Winston said. “Okay, he ran into her at a party two months ago, then sent me a 10-page email about what she meant when she said ‘I’ll see you soon.’”

 _“Crap. I didn’t know it was that bad,”_ Jess thought, mentally hitting herself for abandoning her post. _“I had one job! And I let him convince me that I didn’t need to do it.”_

“She will flirt with him until she knows she can have him. It’s like he’s her backup plan,” Schmidt elaborated.

Jess swallowed. “I didn’t know that.”

“You wanna live with Nick when he’s not showering and crying all day? You ever heard a grown man sob and listen to Simon and Garfunkel?”

“Yeah, my dad.”

“Yeah,” Schmidt said, tilting his head towards Jess.

She sighed. “Okay, I get it. I’ll go. But just…my bicycle shorts are really tight. I had to wear them to fit in this dress, and they’re starting to hurt,” she said, tugging at the shorts she was wearing underneath her dress for emphasis.

“Come on,” Schmidt chided as he stood up and pulled Jess up with him, “work through it, woman.”

“Okay, okay. Okay.”

Despite being in near-excruciating pain, Jess had a clear plan in mind. Make her way over to the dance floor. Rope Nick into leaving Caroline to come join her. Even if he didn’t actually want to dance with her, it would be a bad look to leave his supposed girlfriend out on the dance floor all alone.

She slid into the crowd of people and started swaying to the music, positioning herself so that she was right in front of Nick and Caroline’s table. They were cozied up like her and Nick had been before she left him, and Jess felt a small pang in her chest as she watched the two of them converse.

 _“What’s so great about Caroline, anyway? He looks at her like…like she’s a goddess,”_ Jess thought, but immediately pushed the notion out of her mind. _“No. I am_ not _going to put down this woman that is probably a perfectly nice person that happened to break Nick’s heart. I just have to steal him away from her right now.”_

However, she couldn’t reason her way out of how her stomach dropped at seeing Caroline laugh at one of Nick’s jokes. When she moved to gently stroke the side of his face, Jess felt a spark of pure anger light up inside of her.

She decided to channel the newfound anger into dance. It was her go-to for all bad feelings in life, but this was a unique situation, since her dancing literally had the power to undo the source of her anger. “Come on in, honey! The water’s fine,” she called to Nick. She spun around as he finally looked up at her, hoping that the little purple dress he seemed to like so much would be enough to pull him out of this Caroline-induced haze.

“Jess, you know I don’t dance,” he called back instead.

Jess huffed, but knew that she couldn’t give up that easily. Schmidt was counting on her. Winston was counting on her. The entire social fabric of the loft depended on her being able to pull Nick away from Caroline using her various feminine wiles.

“Oh, but you didn’t know that I did this,” she said right as she launched into a mime walk. “I’m mime walking. I’m Mime-chael Jackson.”

For a second, it seemed like it worked. His eyes lit up and he laughed, which made Jess think he was about to join her on the dance floor. However, Caroline quickly dashed any hope she had.

“I’m going to get a drink,” the blonde grumbled.

“Me too!” Nick echoed.

“Nick, wait, no!”

“Jess, relax, this is good!” He stepped over to talk to her, stopping mere inches short of her. “I may actually have a chance, and it’s all because of you, so thank you!!”

That was just about the last thing Jess wanted to hear. _“Because that’s bad news for the loft, right?”_

“No, Nick, that wasn’t my intention! Nick…” she tried calling after him, but he had already disappeared with Caroline.

Before Jess could run off to find Schmidt or Winston, the child usher that the latter had been arguing with came up to her and blocked her exit from the dance floor.

“Oh, hi! I don’t feel like dancing right now, I’m sorry!” she said, swiftly pushing past the boy. However, he grabbed her by the hand and pulled her back in before she could react.

_“Well, this is going to be an incredibly long evening.”_

\---

He had a shot of getting back together with Caroline, he could feel it. A real, honest-to-goodness shot, not just a false alarm like the last five times had been. Jess had made her skin crawl. If Nick had known that all he had to do was make her jealous by pretending to date a more attractive woman, he would have done it ages ago.

Not that he thought Jess was more attractive than Caroline. _“But maybe I do. Maybe she is. Does it matter? I can’t have Jess, I can have Caroline, and Jess is the reason I can have Caroline. It doesn’t have to be complicated.”_

That was the thing: being with Caroline _wasn’t_ complicated. At least, not when times were good. Not when things were the way they were in this moment. Not when they were shoulder to shoulder in a photo booth, running through all of their old classic poses.

Nothing could ruin this. They were going to get back together, Nick wouldn’t have to feel guilty about developing feelings for one of his roommates, and all would be right with the world.

\---

“Hey, Jess!”

“Winston! I just ran into the girl that Schmidt’s trying to sleep with while I was cutting off my bicycle shorts, and she seems super nice!” Jess replied.

“That’s great, but not important right now. Caroline took Nick into the photo booth over there. It’s gone too far, can you do something?” he asked, his tone desperate.

Her eyes widened. “Okay. I can try. It didn’t work last time, but-”

“Jess,” Winston placed his hands on each of her shoulders and shook her gently. “You’re our only hope.”

She took a deep breath. “Okay. I should be able to think better now that my circulation isn’t being cut off by those dumb shorts.”

Winston nodded. “Do whatever you have to do.” He patted her on the back and pushed her in the direction of the photo booth.

_“What do I do? More seduction? More theatrics? Theatrics, for sure. Do I just go in there, or…?”_

When Jess saw the outlines of Nick and Caroline pressed together, she didn’t have time to think before her instincts kicked in and she threw the curtain open and pointed an accusatory finger at Nick.

“A-ha! I trusted you!” she screamed.

“Jess, get out of here,” Nick commanded.

“Nothing happened!” Caroline insisted, flying up out of the booth to face Jess.

“After everything we built! Who are you?” Jess continued to yell, ignoring Caroline entirely.

Nick sighed. “Go away Jess, please.”

“No, really, nothing happened, I have a boyfriend,” Caroline said. Both Nick and Jess went silent.

 _“Boyfriend? So she was just…leading him on? For what, to keep hurting him?”_ Suddenly, Jess felt that her earlier anger at Caroline had been justified.

“Wait, you have a boyfriend?” Nick asked after a moment.

“Yeah, well, I’ve been seeing someone. I didn’t bring him because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings, but now I know that you have Jess and-”

“Yeah, he has me,” Jess grumbled. She sounded a little too genuinely upset, so she quickly decided to cut the meaning from the moment with another round of theatrics. “And our baby!”

“Okay, I'm just gonna let you guys sort this out,” Caroline said with a deep sigh. She turned and disappeared into the crowd, leaving Jess and Nick to watch her walk away.

“Too much, Jess,” Nick grumbled from the photo booth.

“Jess, what happened with Brooke?!” Schmidt exclaimed as he rushed over to stand beside the booth.

“We met in the bathroom, I talked you up!” Jess said cheerfully.

“Well, she just left here in tears, she said that you threatened her with a knife?”

Jess thought back on the interaction and came to the sudden realization that maybe waving a bicycle shorts-cutting knife in the woman’s face hadn’t helped Schmidt’s case one bit. “I didn’t mean to! I was just cutting myself out of my shorts and decided to help you!”

“No, you shouldn’t have been helping me. You should have been taking care of Nick! Why is it so hard to do one thing?” Schmidt asked.

Jess flicked her gaze over to the man in the photo booth, who was currently leaning over with his head in his hands. She felt a flash of pity before remembering that he had done this to himself. He had told her to leave. He decided not to dance with her. He didn’t listen to her reasonable objections to the idea of spending more time with Caroline.

“How is this my fault?”

“Ruiner,” Schimdt grumbled.

Jess gasped. “Did you just call me a ruiner?”

“Yeah.”

Her face fell, then quickly came to rest in an incredibly determined expression. “Okay, you know what? Forget it. I’m not helping you guys anymore. Nick, give me my teeth back.” She pushed into the booth and dove straight for the coat pocket she’d seen him stuff her fake teeth into.

“Stop it!” he protested, trying to slap her hands away. He’d underestimated how set she was on getting them back and wasn’t able to keep her from reclaiming the prized possession.

“I’m gonna have fun,” Jess insisted as she put the prop teeth back on, “because there’s nothing wrong with who I am, and I like having fun at weddings. And I like dancing. And if you don’t like that, then tough tater tots, tooter. Jess is back!”

She stormed off without so much as a second look at her friends. She wasn’t a ruiner. She wasn’t an embarrassment. She was Jessica Day, the world’s best roommate and fake girlfriend and wedding guest. She didn’t need her fake boyfriend or her supposedly real friends to have a good time. She just needed herself, her prop teeth, and several containers of bubbles from the table at the front of the lobby.

\---

So it _had_ been another false alarm. Not even Jess-induced jealousy had been enough to change Caroline’s mind.

They weren’t getting back together. Schmidt was mourning the loss of the chance to sleep with his college crush. Winston was probably still battling the eight-year-old usher. And Nick had driven Jess away.

She’d tried to keep him safe from this. But, little did she know, her attempts to do so had begun to pull him toward different dangerous waters - ones that he couldn’t swim in, no matter how much he was beginning to want to. Caroline had been the lesser of two evils, but it still ended with him alone in a photo booth; a drink in his hand and tears running down his face. _And_ he’d hurt Jess when she was only trying to do the job he and the others had given her.

Maybe he was destined for this. Maybe there was no better ending in sight for Nick Miller. Maybe this was as good as it was ever going to get.

He took another swig of his whiskey and pressed the button to start up the photo booth.

\---

Despite her resolution to party hard, Jess ended up sitting a table all alone, blowing bubbles only to pop them before they strayed too far. In a way, it felt like a metaphor for this entire terrible wedding; her roommates had placed too many unrealistic expectations on her, so she popped. If Nick really wanted to be with Caroline, who was she to stop him from trying to win her back? Of course, it was an impossible task now. But before the revelation that she had a boyfriend, no one could have stopped him from trying.

Jess was sitting alone, contemplating all of these things when Winston came up to the table and pulled up a chair next to her.

“Hey there, partner.”

Winston chuckled as he sat down and reached over to grab one of her bubble containers. He turned it over in his hand a few times before lifting it up to unscrew the lid. “Hey, can I tell you something you promise to never tell Schmidt?” Jess nodded. “I love bubbles. I don’t know why, I just always have.”

He lifted the wand to his lips and blew, sending a flurry of tiny bubbles out into the space above them. Jess gave a weak smile as he halfheartedly poked at some of them.

“Hey, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Jess replied. She didn’t _quite_ feel fine, but she didn’t know a single reason why she wouldn’t be.

“Those guys were jerks,” Winston said. “But I know they’re glad you’re around.”

Jess squinted. “Really?”

“Yeah! They’re not just going to come out and say it, though. Especially Nick, you know. But they’re all thinking it. Even me. Most of the time.”

Of course Nick wouldn’t. After tonight, he’d probably be mad at her for the foreseeable future. In his eyes, she’d given him another shot with Caroline that ended in another heartbreak. Indirectly, Jessica Day had broken his heart.

“Thank you, Winston. I know that if you guys really didn’t want me to live with you anymore, you’d just tell me. But…it’s nice to hear that you _really_ want me around.”

“Of course! You know, Nick-”

“Okay, so, uh, we have a situation,” Schmidt interjected, running up to their table and leaning down to talk to them.

Jess tilted her head to the side. “What kind of situation?”

“Just…come with me.”

\---

“Hey, Nick, how are you doing, buddy?” Winston asked. He leaned back against the booth and tried to peer inside to see their friend.

Nick had boarded himself up inside the photo booth, scaring away all others who dared to enter. Schmidt explained on the way that nothing he did could get Nick out, and that he needed backup.

“They want me to leave the booth, but I’m staying. This is my home now. It’s got everything that I need,” he replied.

“Oh boy,” Jess muttered.

Schmidt grabbed several photo strips from the dispenser on the outside of the booth and held them up to Jess. “You can see by looking at these pictures that he’s experiencing a variety of different emotions. This one is…well, that one’s actually his butt.” Jess leaned in closer to get a better look, then quickly pulled back and averted her eyes.

“He just keeps saying your name,” Schmidt continued.

“Jess,” Nick yelled, “the fact is that I was a mean person and I’m sorry, okay?”

Jess glanced at both Schmidt and Winston, giving them a nod before stepping forward to pull back the curtain separating Nick from the rest of the party.

“Hi, Nicholas.”

“Hi, Jess, I live in a photo booth now.”

“Oh, is that so?”

“Yup, come on in! Come on in!” he insisted. Jess shuffled beside him and lowered herself onto the bench as Nick scooted over to make room for her.

“That’s the kitchen area,” he said, pointing to the left corner of the booth, “this is the common area.” He gestured to the space in front of them and looked to Jess for her opinion.

“Okay, okay. Very nice.”

“It’s also the dining room, living room…kind of everything.”

“It’s _very_ nice,” Jess said, maintaining a steady smile despite the feeling of seeing how much despair Nick had fallen into.

The pair went silent for a moment, looking over Nick’s new kitchen-dining-living-common room-slash-area.

“Hey,” Jess softly broke the silence, “she has a boyfriend. She shouldn’t have been flirting with you all night. You can’t be her backup plan. You have to let each other go.” Nick nodded, like he’d known all along that it would come to this, but he still wasn’t thrilled about it.

“So now, you have to make a decision,” she continued. “‘Am I gonna stay locked in a photo booth for the next hour? Or am I gonna get out there, take my shoes off, and dance my face off?’”

She met his gaze for a brief moment, just in time to see him smile. It seemed like a genuine smile, too. Jess let out a short laugh as they kept studying one another, purely because she didn’t know what else to do.

“It’s up to you,” Jess concluded. She turned away and stood up to leave the booth, pushing the curtain out of the way and striding through it without looking back.

It was all in Nick’s hands now. Either she was enough to pull him out of his spiral, or she wasn’t.

She hoped she was. Just for the sake of the loft, that is.

\---

He hadn’t hurt Jess too badly. That was good. But now came the bad.

He’d barely planned what he was going to say to Caroline before he found himself sitting right in front of her. But that was okay, it’s not like he planned out much of his life, anyway.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

Caroline’s face contorted in shock.

 _“She always counted on having me as the ‘just in case’, didn’t she?”_ Nick thought, and realized once again that Schmidt and Winston were right. Schmidt, Winston, and Jess, who had been trying to protect him from this absolute truth.

“I have to let you go, Caroline. For real. It has to be over.”

“Okay,” she squeaked. She leaned towards him and wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

“Goodbye. And good luck, and everything,” Nick murmured as he rubbed one spot of her back with his thumb.

“Goodbye,” she said, pulling away. “Treat Jess well. I know you will, but…she seems like something special. Something different for you.”

Nick’s gaze wandered over to the table where Jess was currently hunched over and attempting to secretly observe him and Caroline. He let out a low chuckle as she leaned over to whisper to Schmidt and Winston, definitely about him.

“Yeah, she is. She’s special. I promise, I’ll treat her well.”

Caroline nodded, a sad sort of smile crossing her face.

“Well, um, I’ve got to…excuse me,” Nick said, flashing her one last smile in return before standing up from the table. He didn’t look back, not even once, as he strode over to Jess.

“Come on, Jess.”

“What?” She looked up at him in confusion, her eyes shining in the low light of the reception hall.

“Please, just come with me?” he said. Jess stood up to join him despite her still visible confusion and Nick slowly led her over to the dance floor.

A slow song had kicked on while they were walking over. When they reached the wooden portion of the floor, both of them stopped and faced each other. Nick wasn’t quite sure what to do, now. Should he take her hand and put one arm around her waist? Should he run away, now that Jess looked even prettier underneath the bright lights above them? Or should he stay frozen in that moment, content to simply stare at his roommate, who was staring right back at him with parted lips?

He made up his mind a second later, remembering how Jess had explained her alternate chicken dance before they’d left for the wedding. That was it. That was the right answer.

Slowly, in time to the music, he started to go through the motions. Jess laughed when she realized what he was doing and quickly joined in.

_“She looks happier than I’ve ever seen her. Was this all me? No. It’s just the wedding, she said she likes having fun at weddings.”_

It wasn’t too long before Schmidt and Winston joined them, and everything felt right with the world. They all belonged together, Nick decided. This was exactly where they were all meant to be right at this moment.

Especially him and Jess. She could be infuriating and childish and uncomfortably naive, but that was all _Jess_ , and even though he’d only known her for a few weeks, Nick wouldn’t trade any of it for anything.

\---

“Hey, Jess?”

She jumped and spun around to face the source of the voice. The last thing one usually expected when they got out of the shower was for someone to be standing outside. Of course, that was different in the loft; there _always_ seemed to be someone standing outside. But it was usually Schmidt asking Jess to pass him his body chutney or Winston reminding her not to use up all of the hot water. Rarely was the owner of this deeper voice. Rarely was it Nick.

“Oh, Nick! Hey.”

“Um, I just wanted to say thank you. For being such a good fake girlfriend,” he said.

“Oh, it’s no problem. No problem at all…boblem,” Jess replied with a wave of her hand, cringing at her last statement.

Nick chuckled. “No problem, boblem, I like it.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, it’s cute.” He shuffled closer to Jess, not breaking eye contact with her until he was mere inches away from her. “I mean, it’s funny,” he corrected, his gaze darting down to the ground.

Her mouth quirked up into a smile. “Yeah. Glad to hear it.”

Nick looked back up, and Jess swore that there were literal stars in his eyes. Like he’d flown up into space and grabbed some to wear like contact lenses.

“Well…”

“I should let you go put clothes on, huh?”

Jess tugged at the pink towel that was currently wrapped around her. “Yeah, you should. Say, how long were you waiting out here for me?”

Nick opened his mouth, then immediately closed it again.

“Was it for my entire shower?”

“No! Just…just part of it. I, uh…I had to brush my teeth. And…I like listening to you sing.”

Jess’ smile widened. “Okay, Miller. You know, I can sing for you when I’m _not_ in the shower…”

“Nah, that’s not necessary, that would be kinda weird.”

“Weirder than you conveniently coming in here to brush your teeth when I’m in the shower?”

“You should go! Put clothes on!” Nick exclaimed, frantically shooing her out of the bathroom.

“Okay, okay!” Jess agreed with a laugh. “Good night, Nick.”

“Good night, Jess.”

She stopped in the doorway to take one last look at him over her shoulder. He waved and flashed her a gentle smile. Jess smiled back before turning away and continuing down the hall.

_“I’m so glad that we’re such good friends! Good friends. Great friends, even. Nick is just…such a great friend. And I don’t have to worry about him ever being anything less.”_

**Author's Note:**

> I had this idea a little while ago and told myself that I would hold off on starting it before I was done with another long project, but it turns out that I couldn't hold myself back. I'm not exactly sure how long this will end up being, or how long it will be between updates, but I hope you enjoyed this first chapter regardless!! I know that it was mostly a rehash of 01x03, but it was important for the foundation of this fic. 
> 
> let me know what you thought in a comment if you want to!! hope you all are doing well and have a great day <3


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